Page 61 of Queen

he had come home with such high, bright hopes, to be loved and to be in

  a world he understood.

  As he got down from the cart, he stared at his property with a mounting

  sense of unease. He'd been away only six months, but there was an

  atmosphere of disrepair and neglect about the place. He saw the distant

  figures picking cotton, but only half the number there should have been,

  and there were still acres to be picked before the rain came.

  Then Lizzie, dressed as a field hand, ran screaming into his arms, and

  clutched him, and wept, and blurted out the news of the death of his

  daughters. He hardly knew how to respond, for it was too shocking and

  unexpected and the enormity of what had happened was too great for him

  to assimilate.

  He took his wife and son to the big house, sat with them

  QUEEN 503

  in the kitchen, and said very little while he heard the stories of their

  deprivation in his absence. He wished they'd stop, because he wanted to

  be alone, but could not be yet, because he was husband and father.

  Then Cap'n Jack burst in, and told him that Easter was dying.

  Without saying a word, Jass got up from the table, left the room, left

  the house, and walked, faster and faster, to the one place in the world

  that was constant to him, and was not constant anymore.

  He heard Lizzie call after him. "This is your family!" She sounded angry,

  but he didn't care.

  He shivered with fear as he walked. He could see it now, nestling in the

  trees as it always had, the cottage of his dreams, and he began to run,

  as he ran to it once, so many years ago, on the night his father died.

  She had been there then, waiting for him, as she always waited for him,

  and she had to be there now, because she was always there.

  But just as he started to run, he heard an awful scream from inside the

  house, and he stopped running, for he understood what the dreadful sound

  meant, and his blood ran cold.

  He came into the weaving house and saw what he had known he would see.

  Easter was lying on the bed, her eyes closed in death.

  Queen -was beside her, sobbing, and clinging to her mother, as if to drag

  her back from her new dominion, and Sally was comforting Queen.

  He hadn't spoken, had hardly made a sound when he came in, but somehow

  Queen knew he was there. She ran to him, threw herself at his feet and

  clutched at his legs, begging him to bring her mammy back, to make

  everything all right again.

  He saw what she did and heard what she said, but without seeing and

  without hewing. The only thing he could see was the awful image of

  Easter, and then his mind exploded, and refused to accept what his eyes

  saw. He turned his head away, so that he wouldn't have to look at her.

  Sally came to Queen and pulled her from her father, the Massa.

  "Come, girl, come," she said. "Save your grief till later. We must 'get

  a winding sheet."

  504 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  Just once, Jass looked at Queen, and that once was almost enough, for she

  saw the unbearable grief in his eyes, and a pain, and a loneliness, more

  intense than her own. She allowed Sally to pull her away, and left her

  father alone with her mother.

  He didn't look at her, and he didn't go to her, because there was no point.

  She was not there.

  He sat in his old rocking chair, and stared at nothing. Waiting. If he did

  what he had always done, sat and waited for her, then she would come back

  from the well, and sit at her loom, and they'd be together again, nothing

  could keep them apart, and everything would be as it had always been.

  He sat for hours, seeing her dance in his mind, a living and beautiful

  thing, who had taken possession of his heart at some time before he could

  remember, and had nursed and cherished him through all his life.

  He didn't move or speak. Night came, and still he sat there. Then, without

  understanding how it happened, he knew she wasn't going to come back from

  the well, ever again. He knew he would never see her, living, again, and

  prayed that her soul was in some sweet and gentle resting place.

  For a great and simple truth had overwhelmed him. He had known it for so

  long, all his thinking life; perhaps he had put it out of his mind because

  it made the world too complicated. The implications of it now were so

  frightening, he could not, at this moment, bear to consider them.

  Black people did have souls.

  He turned and looked at the body.

  "Oh, my love," he said.

  And he wept.

  58

  it was as if someone had turned out a lamp in Queen's heart, or God had

  snatched the sun away. Although the awful truth of Easter's death had burst

  into her soul at the moment of her mammy's going, Queen understood that it

  was to a place she could not follow, and disbelief fought with knowledge. A

  tiny part of her nursed, cherished, the idea that her mammy was only resting

  somewhere, and would come to her again, but the greater part knew Easter's

  loving embrace was gone forever, and she was filled with an unassuageable

  sense of loss. Anger battled with despair, and loneliness was the champion.

  Under Sally's careful instruction, she had gone about the necessary

  business, and had sat outside the weaving house for hours waiting till Jass

  had finished whatever it was he still had to do with her mother, clutching

  the winding sheet to her, and keening softly. When Jass left the weaving

  house late that night, Queen went in, and kissed and caressed her dead

  mother, and wept her distress. Then, refusing Cap'n Jack or Sally's help,

  she had washed Easter's body, gently as a daughter should, and made her hair

  pretty, and wrapped her in the winding sheet.

  As she tended the body, unanswerable questions assailed her, of which the

  greatest concerned Jass, for now he was her nearest living relative, apart

  from Cap'n Jack, and the living link of love with her mother. For she knew

  it must have been love, and knew it was a love that fell outside the

  parameters of conventional domesticity. As a slave, it was not strange to

  her that Easter so willingly accepted the limits that their society imposed

  on their relationship, and to have had the small proofs she did of the

  Massa's love was a treasure sweeter to Queen than any she could imagine. It

  was what she wanted now, some word, some look, and, most wondrous of all,

  an

  505

  506 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  embrace, from her father, but it never came. Apart from that one, tiny,

  anguished look that Jass had given Queen, when she had thought she had

  seen into his soul, Jass ignored her, and this added to Queen's sense of

  bereavement. She had thought that he loved her, but now, in her time of

  greatest need, his reassurance did not come. Cap'n Jack was kind to her,

  and Sally, but they could not fill the void in her heart. On the night

  that Easter was buried, Queen could not sleep. Comfortable and warm in
her

  tiny cot, she could not bear to think of Easter lying in the wet, cold

  earth, eaten by worms. It was Sally who was able to persuade her that the

  ground would be kind to her mother, and cherish her mortal remains while

  her spirit found a greater comfort.

  Jass was not thoughtless of Queen, nor did he intend to hurt. It was

  simply that he was trying to find a way to cope with his own grief, his

  own loneliness, and to avoid considerations of his world turned upside.

  He longed to fight for his country, but he no longer believed in the cause

  his country fought for. Jass now believed that slavery must end one day,

  for the forces of the world and his own heart were against it, but he

  could not let his country be vanquished by his brothers. Queen was the

  physical embodiment of the contradictions that raged within him. Restless

  and dispirited, he spent most of his days in Florence, anxious for news

  of the war, and getting drunk with men who were too old to fight, and boys

  who were too young. He was bitter because he had been forced back into

  idleness, while good men, friends, were dying.

  Neither side appeared to be winning, and the list of the dead was growing

  daily. Almost everyone who came to The Forks had a friend or cousin or

  brother or son who had paid the ultimate sacrifice.

  It was winter. Barren, inanimate winter. The trees were lifeless and bare.

  The slave graveyard, so prettily situated in the other seasons, was

  desolate now. It suited Queen's mood, for the weeks had not eased her

  sense of loss. A simple wooden cross marked Easter's grave, among so many

  dead. Next to her lay Julie, who had gone so very recently, and Ephraim

  who had also died of the fever. Not far away was Solomon, who had

  QUEEN 507

  escaped from The Forks of Cypress once, and been recaptured and brought

  back, and never ceased to bore them with the tall tales of his freedom. Over

  yonder was Tiara, who had helped Queen to be born, and had been kind to her

  when she was little. She was gone soon after Queen moved into the big house,

  and lay beside her husband, Micah, in perfect peace.

  Queen came here almost every day, to tend the grave and keep it neat and

  clean. And to talk to her mammy, who was, to her, still a living creature,

  safe, in God's comforting arms. Jass's return had not made everything all

  right again; if anything, their physical circumstances were worse. The war,

  which everyone had thought would be over in a few short months, dragged on.

  Food was scarce; all they had was what the farm could provide. It would

  soon be Christmas, but no one could find any reason for cheer.

  Queen, wrapped in a blanket to keep her warm, sat by her mother's grave and

  told her these things. She was cold and lonely, she worked too hard, and no

  one ever seemed grateful for all the things she did; they accepted them as

  if it were her place to care for them, and demanded as much from her as she

  could give, and then demanded more. To them she was a slave, she knew, and

  it was her duty to slave for them, but Queen could not accept that she was

  only a slave. No one understood that Queen looked after them all because

  they were her family.

  If only she weren't so tired all the time. If only her mammy were here,

  with her, to help.

  "I miss you, Mammy," she whispered, too exhausted even to cry.

  She sat for a while and pulled a few old weeds from the grave. Not many,

  because it was winter, and not even weeds grew in winter.

  She became aware that she was not alone. Someone else was standing in the

  trees near her, watching her.

  It was Jass. 4

  Wearily, Queen dragged herself to her feet.

  "I sorry, Massa," she said, knowing her place.

  He shrugged his shoulders. Place didn't matter very much, here. Neither of

  them said anything because they couldn't think of anything to say. Gossip

  was irrelevant, sacrilegious here, and all the news was bad.

  508 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  But the silence was awkward. More than Massa and slave, they were not as

  much as father and daughter. Yet he had to speak to her. If her loss was

  as keen as his own, could they not find some little comfort from each

  other?

  "Do you come here often?" Jass asked, and Queen nodded.

  "You work very hard," Jass said. "Thank you."

  Queen closed her eyes, and felt warm again. At least the Massa understood

  how hard she worked. At least her father had said thank you.

  "I'm sorry we're not more help to you," Jass said, and it was Queen's

  turn to shrug.

  "Not your place, Massa," she told him. She did not understand his mood.

  He was here with them, safe from the war.

  "Sometimes I wonder where my place is," he said, and his bitterness

  confused her.

  Why did he hate himself so? Queen wanted to go to him, hold him, tell him

  they loved him. Tell him that she loved him. She didn't, because she

  didn't know how. No one had ever taught her. She wondered if her mammy

  had ever told him how much she had loved him. Or he her.

  She turned away, unable to cope with his bleak, winter mood, but her need

  for him was too strong. She turned back, but he was gone.

  Jass walked down the hill from the slave graveyard. He had wanted to be

  there alone, to sit and talk with Easter for a while, but Queen was there,

  and he felt guilty at disturbing her. The child had so little; he could

  not take away what little she had. He had found no comfort from her;

  rather her evident sense of pain had increased his own. Thoughts of death

  and dying filled him. The family cemetery was at the bottom of the hill,

  and he went to it, and stood at the graves of his daughters. Cap'n Jack

  had said they died easy, but that wasn't true. No one died easy.

  He yearned to be away at the war. He wasn't sure what the cause was

  anymore, except the protection of his place and his family, and they had

  to be protected. He tried to block his mind to the matter of slavery,

  because to deny the rightness of it was to deny the South, and everything

  Jass understood himself to be. What was important was the South, not for

  the

  QUEEN 509

  maintenance of slavery but for its sheer survival. Militarily, the South

  seemed to have a small advantage; at any rate, they had not lost. Perhaps

  the North had originally underestimated the skill and ferociousness of

  their enemy. Perhaps they had misunderstood the whole rationale of the

  war. The South was fighting for its very existence; the North was fighting

  only to win. But the North had the resources to assemble a vast war

  machine, Jass knew, and when that was in place the possibility of a

  Southern victory required every possible man.

  One of those men was Jass. Discharged from the army but determined to

  fight, he had talked with his brother William, who had presented a

  solution. William, a Confederate state senator, knew all the ins and outs

  of political intrigue. He in
tended to raise a company, the Franklin

  Rifles, and would pay for their uniforms. He would present his company

  to the army command; it would be accepted into service and William given

  a commission considered appropriate.

  There was no reason why Jass could not do the same. He could afford to

  do so, and the army would infinitely prefer to have his troops under its

  command than roaming renegade free.

  He told them at dinner, and Lizzie was predictably angry. As usual,

  Parson Dick was listening in the pantry, and relayed the news to Queen

  in the kitchen.

  "Miss Lizzie don't like it," he said.

  "Miss Lizzie don't like nothing," Queen sniffed, busy with the meal. "Set

  them taters out for me, Poppy," she called to her unwilling assistant.

  "And you get that meat out to them, Parson Dick, you hear?"

  "Not much point. Nobody's eatin', 'cept young Massa William." Parson Dick

  was enjoying the row in the dining room.

  Queen didn't want her father to go, and was as angry as Lizzie. She

  banged a pot on the stove. "Ain't none of our business," she snapped. "We

  cook it an' serve it. lf'n they eat it or not's up to them. "

  Parson Dick took the stewed rabbit into the dining room. When he was

  gone, Queen's energy deserted her. Why did he have to go? He was wounded,

  he had no reason to fight. Why did he want to leave them alone again,

  when they needed him here?

  510 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  Lizzie tried so hard to be reasonable, but could not see Jass's point.

  He couldn't protect them if he was hundreds of miles away.

  "What if the Yankees come?" she said for the umpteenth time. "A handful

  of raggedy slaves can't protect us."

  Parson Dick bridled at the word "raggedy" but presented the rabbit to

  Sally.

  "They'll never get this far South," Jass insisted.

  "They might," Lizzie countered.

  "Then it's up to me to try to stop them!" Jass was angry, and Lizzie and

  Sally both knew it was pointless trying to change his mind when he was

  this determined.

  There was a small silence while Jass fumed and Lizzie sulked. Sally tried

  to restore order.

  "Well, now, rabbit," she said. "We haven't had meat for a while."

  "A scraggy ol' thing Massa William shot this morning," Parson Dick told

  her, and winked at William, who, alone of those at the table, was pleased

  that his father was going back to war. The fathers of most of his school

  friends had gone, and even though William understood that Jass had been

  wounded, he wanted a soldier father, especially an officer. He hadn't

  understood why Jass enlisted as a private the first time.

  Jass assembled and paid for his company, the 27th Alabama Infantry,

  offered it to the Confederate Army High Command, and was appointed

  lieutenant-colonel. They marched out in January to Fort Donelson, where

  they were assigned.

  Sally was pleased. Fort Donelson was named after the family of her dear

  departed friend, Rachel Jackson, Andrew's wife, and was situated on the

  banks of the Cumberland River, near Nashville. Jass would be safe there,

  hundreds of miles from the Northern battlefields.

  She was wrong.

  A vast, unstoppable, blue-clad army appeared, it seemed from nowhere,

  from the west, conquering all in its path. Fort Donelson fell to the

  forces of General Grant, and Nashville soon after. Jass was taken

  prisoner of war.

  "Perhaps it is God's will that I do not fight," he told his

  QUEEN 511

  mother in a rare letter during his incarceration. "At least, He seems to

  be doing His level best to keep me from this war."

  He prayed for a similar blessing for his family and cursed it for

  himself.

  59

  Young Davy brought them the news first. For days they had expected it, but

  when it came it was shocking.

  "The Yankees done took Florence," he yelled as he ran up the hill. -01'

  Linkun's in there killin' everybody!"